Sony Vaio PCG-SR1K
The Sony Vaio PCG-SR1K (also known as the Sony Vaio PCG-3192) was a superlight laptop produced in 2000 by Sony as part of the Sony Vaio PCG-SR line. It used a 500 MHz version of the Intel Mobile Pentium III "Coppermine" CPU, the Intel 440BX chipset, and came with NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV+ graphics. Weighing just 1.36kg without the AC adaptor, the SR1K was an extremely powerful machine for its class and size at the time, and indeed is little thicker than many of today's ultrabooks are at their thickest point. Performance and features Processor The Sony Vaio PCG-SR1K used the 500 MHz version of the Intel Mobile Pentium III "Coppermine" CPU. This was a fairly powerful CPU in 2000, when you take into account just how thin and light the chassis was; as such, it does tend to run quite warm. Part of the reason for this is that this system used the full voltage version of the chip; the ULV 500 MHz part would not arrive for another year. As you would probably expect for a laptop of this type, I believe the CPUs were soldered onto the motherboard in the BGA2 arrangement. I probably wouldn't recommend using XP SP3 on a 500 MHz PIII these days, but it certainly has no issue with Windows 2000. Using these laptops on your lap, without something in between, is not a good idea; the chassis tends to act as one big heatsink. Self-monitored fan control The fan will run pretty much constantly in this system; a 500 MHz PIII is a lot for a system of this age and size to handle. I couldn't tell you the exact temperature it kicks in at; the temperature sensor tends to jump up a few degrees at once. Graphics The PCG-SR1K used the NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV+ GPU, which somewhat unusually had 3MB of VRAM. This is not really a 3D-capable chip, and came right at the end of NeoMagic's laptop GPU production. It is, however, more than capable of 2D gaming, should you wish to do such a thing. Screen The PCG-SR1K used a 10.4" TFT screen with a resolution of 1024x768. This was a very large resolution for such a small screen at the time; as such, any good example of the screen will be very sharp, and the screen looks very good during gaming. The screen scaling from lower resolutions does tend to look a little odd; it doesn't really fill the screen correctly, but it does work. Sound The PCG-SR1K used a Yamaha sound chip of some kind. I don't know exactly what it is, because Sony didn't say. It is fully capable of stereo 16-bit sound. The speakers aren't too bad at all, for something so thin and light. Chipset If I remember correctly, the PCG-SR1K used an Intel 440BX chipset. This was a legendarily stable chipset, to the point where a lot of Virtual Machines actually use it as their emulated chipset; it was also a very capable performer. This chipset shouldn't cause you any issues whatsoever. Power supply and battery The PCG-SR1K used a 16V, 4A charger, which is completely different to most Sony chargers of the time. I can't comment on its performance, as the battery I have is totally dead. It is a very hefty charger though, and seems rock solid. Battery-wise, these laptops used a 6-cell lithium ion battery. No idea how long it was supposed to last, as Sony didn't say, but I would expect somewhere around the 3 hour region. The battery is probably the bulkiest part of the laptop, aside from the screen; Sony didn't cut any corners here. Replacement batteries seem to cost about £27, which is about the middle for laptops. Other noteworthy features The PCG-SR1K used PC100 MicroDIMMs for memory, which makes upgrading the RAM a little tricky - something that is necessary when the system only shipped new with 64MB by default. It's doable, but certainly not anywhere near as cheap as a regular PC100 stick would be. Due to the size constraints, the PCG-SR1K does away with most legacy port support, and the optical drive is an external CD-ROM module that connects via the PCMCIA port. The laptop did feature a MemoryStick slot, in addition to a programmable control wheel and a S400 FireWire port. Operating system flexibility I'm not going to sugar coat it; Sony are hopeless when it comes to providing support for multiple operating systems. You have full support for Windows 2000, and nothing else. Not even 98 or Millennium, which were both fairly popular at this pre-XP point in time. There are, at least, some drivers for running Windows XP... but owing to the MicroDIMM RAM choice, which either never came in 256MB form, or was extremely hard to find like that, that OS is not really a viable choice. I have really struggled to find any Windows 98 compatible drivers for either the video or the audio, and owing to the issues with my systems (of which more later), I can't recommend trying to run Windows 98 on one of these. Maintenance feasibility Ease of physically working on the system In spite of, or possibly because of, the PCG-SR1K's small size, these systems are very easy to work on. The manual is totally useless for maintenance, of course; this is a Sony product after all. However, there aren't all that many screws to deal with, everything comes apart in a logical fashion, and nothing is that hard to figure out. It really is a pleasure to work on. I must say that I don't actually know where the CMOS battery is though. The only issue I have is the palmrest ribbon cable, which never wants to stay in the socket. Everything is located under the keyboard or the palmrest in this laptop, so you'll need to take both of those off for any maintenance you perform. Ease of getting parts/complete systems The PCG-SR1K would never have been a big seller in its day; I don't think it was around all that long before NeoMagic pulled out of the market, and its small size and relatively high spec would've made it very much a niche product. As such, parts availability is spotty for certain aspects of the system. Structural components are pretty easy to find; the PCG-SR line used the same chassis, and it's not hard to find those parts. Complete motherboards aren't that hard to find either, although they're rarely at prices that I would deem cost effective. Indeed, the parts availability is generally reasonable - until you come to look for a hard drive caddy... because those simply don't exist on the market a lot of the time. Fortunately, you can do without one in this system due to its design, but it really is a sub-optimal situation. The laptops themselves aren't too hard to find; there's usually one or two examples of a PCG-SR on eBay at any given time, although it's far from guaranteed that you'll find a SR1K in that mix. Screens aren't cheap either, which is worth bearing in mind. Durability/reliability I hate to say it, but I think Sony pushed the thin-and-light concept a little too far with the PCG-SR series. In my experience, these are not reliable laptops (I've owned two of the line). One big issue is that the trackpad cable on the palmrest appears to be problematic, to the point where neither palmrest I've owned works at all, no matter how many times I reseat the cable. Both PCG-SRs also have major PCMCIA slot issues, which is a deal-breaker for a system that needs this slot for optical disk usage; for one system, it doesn't work at all, and the other one disconnects any device after a minute or two. There is no way to hook up an optical drive directly to the motherboard. The one good screen I have has serious issues with backlight bleed, and it appears that a bug or two have worked their way inside the panel. I've never gotten the control wheel to work either. The power sliders on both laptops are also glitchy, and this makes powering the system off by them a tad annoying. Quirks Beyond the numerous technical issues documented above, and some of the unusual features, I can't really say I've noticed any quirks to the PCG-SR1K. Rating I want to like the PCG-SR1K, I really do. It's a very capable system for its minuscule size, and when I look past the backlight bleed in my example's screen, the screen is very nice. But the laptop is just too unreliable and expensive to do any major work on, and I really cannot in good conscience recommend one - particularly not the PCG-SR1K, which is substantially weaker than later models in the GPU department. A crying shame. Good, mediocre, bad Good *Super compact and light chassis weighs only 1.36 kg without a charger. *500 MHz Mobile Pentium III "Coppermine" is a very capable CPU for this time and for this laptop's size. *Intel 440BX chipset is legendarily stable and was a good performer. *Very easy to work on, despite the pathetic manual. Mediocre *Parts availability varies wildly, with some parts being quite rare and/or expensive. *NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV+ GPU isn't really a fully 3D-capable chip. *Entire chassis tends to act as a heatsink, making usage on laps a bad idea. *MicroDIMM RAM means that your effective RAM limit is 256MB, and it will cost a bit to get that high. *Non-existent support for any operating system that isn't Windows 2000 or XP. Bad *Very fragile and unreliable. *Reliant on external PCMCIA optical drive. *Terrible documentation for anything beyond the simplest things - typical Sony failing. Useful links *Official Sony page *Instruction/operation manual